The public buildings in Williamsburg appear to have been the best in British America at the time of their erection. Weld, in his _Travels_, says that “the town in 1795 contained about 1200 people, and the society in it is thought to be more extensive and more genteel at the same time than any place of its size in America.” The city was then the residence of the Rev. James Madison, President of the College, who was the first to teach political economy at any American college; of George Wythe, the teacher of both Marshall and Jefferson, and the first American professor of law; of Charles Bellimi, the first American professor of modern languages; of John Blair, Associate Justice of the United States; of Peter Pelham, the musician, to whose solemn strains on the organ the great Washington had often lent a willing ear as he sat in the old brick church on Sundays; and of many other persons of refinement and cultivation. Williamsburg was the residence in 1841 of John Tyler, when he was called to the Presidential chair by the death of Harrison. [Illustration: JOHN TYLER, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.] In 1861, it shared in all the excitement of the approaching Civil War. The college contributed all its students and professors to the Southern army, as the old city contributed all its able-bodied citizens. During the war its churches and the college were occupied as hospitals by the armies on both sides. Through the city passed the army of Johnston, on its withdrawal from Yorktown; and within its streets burst the shells of the Federals in the bloody battle of Williamsburg in 1862. Then came the great army of McClellan--and so the scenes of direful war changed and shifted, the place being sometimes in possession of the Confederates and sometimes in possession of the Federals. Peace came at last, and the war-worn city took up again the burden of its destiny. The college, which had been burned by the Federal troops, was rebuilt on the old walls, after the old Confederate soldiers returned to their homes. In 1881, the centennial of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis awakened new life. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad ran its cars through the place for the first time, as it transferred the multitudes to Yorktown, thirteen miles away. In 1888, the college, which had been closed for several years, assumed new energies under the patronage of the State Legislature. Then, in 1893, the bicentennial year of the college charter, Congress, by an appropriation of money, made amends in some measure for the injuries inflicted by war. Since that time, the place has greatly improved. The “Ancient Capital” has its face toward the future, while proudly conscious of the past. It is often visited by travellers from Europe, and from the North, who never fail to take away with them kind impressions of the neighborhood, and who love to repeat in letters to newspapers and other periodicals the interesting stories of its ancient and modern history.